


To The Light's Above Arby's And Back

by kirbyfanclub



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Autistic Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale), Carlos is Neurodivergent (Welcome to Night Vale), Dates At Arby's, Engagement, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Trying to Emulate The Night Vale Writing Style, carlos and cecil get engaged bc they r MADLY in love. but we knew that already., i vaguely describe both of them- but dont let that disrupt ur own hcs!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22233286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirbyfanclub/pseuds/kirbyfanclub
Summary: It's been exactly 3 years since that fateful day at the Arby's... and Carlos feels it's time to pop the big question to Cecil. What better place to do so, than under the stars in which their love first blossomed?
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Comments: 3
Kudos: 61





	To The Light's Above Arby's And Back

**Author's Note:**

> hey!! i have not posted fanfiction in a long, LONG time, so consider this my return! i've been holding onto this one for a while- figured its time to release it into the wild. please enjoy!

Carlos the Scientist paced throughout his lab in a focused and determined frenzy. Focused and determined are not often words used to describe a frenzy, but oftentimes incorrect words hold the correct meaning for a situation. Carlos ran his hands through his gelled hair, perfect as always but even more so in the faint wispy styling that he had prepared for the approaching date night. And this date night  _ had _ to be  _ perfect _ . He held two items of importance in each his hands as he paced: a piece of paper covered with many words in tiny, fastidious handwriting, and a small black box. Carlos had his eyes squeezed shut, reciting under his breath what he had written on the sheet. This date night had to be perfect because if all went according to his meticulous planning, tonight would be the night he’d propose to Cecil. 

Coming to the end of his speech, succeeding in a near exact run through of the paper in his hand, Carlos opened his eyes and took a breath. His pacing slowed to a steady rocking on his heels, movement enough to satisfy an especially itchy need to nervously tick. He took a final glance at his script and set it down on the table before checking the small, but emotionally heavy and exceptionally distracting box. Its contents remained in mint condition, untouched by any Faceless Old Woman Secretly Living In Your Home or especially invasive Secret Policeman. He shut the box carefully and slipped it into the pocket of his formal lab coat with a sigh of relief.

Checking the clock on the wall, (which, like approximately 67% of Night Vale clocks, read 5:46 P.M.) Carlos took one more deep breath, made one more attempt at smoothing his shirt, and went out the door. As he traversed the length of the old lab, he waved faintly at his fellow scientists. Occupied by their little missions, they did not wave back, and Carlos understood. He had a little mission of his own to accomplish, and nothing could or would tear his mind off of it.

–––

An hour or so after Carlos picked Cecil up from the station, the two men sat in a dimly lit part of Tourniquet. The meal was casual, light, bleeding and delicious, and Carlos nearly relaxed listening to Cecil discuss the traumas and triumphs of radio work through bites of surprisingly average rice pilaf. Usually, the chefs would slip up and read “mice” instead of “rice”, a situation Carlos found both amusing and aggravating, depending on whether the food was his or not. Time passed, and they laughed in joy and frowned in empathy while the cool night air fell comfortably from the window to their shoulders. They finished their meals in languid pacing, enjoying the other’s company and the familiarity of routine. Walking hand-and-hand through the parking lot, Carlos stopped in front of his car and cleared his throat, turning to his boyfriend. This was it. This was the moment he’d been anticipating. His every nerve felt alight with nervous energy.

“You know, uh, it’s the 3 year anniversary of our first date tonight.”

“I do know! Oh, gosh, this sounds fake but I actually have a surprise for you back home, I hope you didn’t think I forgot,” Cecil rushes, brow furrowing slightly, causing the lines in his forehead to crease in mild distress. He was not one to accept forgetting special events. Carlos’s panic eased ever so slightly. He was so in love.

“No! No, I mean, I wouldn’t be mad if you did, it’s very normal to forget things, even big things, like this.” Another, more confident clearing of his throat. “I was… just thinking… maybe… and this is so sappy but... do you want to go to Arby’s?”

Cecil’s hands reached up to cup Carlos’ face. 

“My sweet Carlos, I would want nothing more.”

–––

A newcomer to Night Vale might say the lights above Arby’s never changed, but Carlos knew better. They were completely different from the first time Carlos had seen them and completely different from the first time Cecil and Carlos sat below them together. If he were honest and betrayed his practiced scientific curiosity a moment, he’d say that the first time he ever truly considered them was that harrowing night. Tonight, back on the hood of Carlos’s car, battered and scuffed from wear and tear and unfathomable winged creatures, the two men sat together once more. Cecil once told Carlos that he knew with certainty what the individual lights had always looked like, no matter their position, as he had been watching them his whole life. He also told Carlos that after years of knowing him, Cecil had begun to watch them with curiosity, looking for a new secret to uncover. He would see the tiniest details he failed to recall and point them out to his partner, who thoroughly explored every new possibility he found. Tonight, his leaping heart wonders about the logistics of them urging him on. He felt as if they were.  _ Some good old fashioned cosmic intervention _ , Cecil would say if he offered the theory. Eyes fixed on the lights, Cecil sat silent and peaceful beside Carlos, stars reflected in his round glasses.

Carlos was not studying the curious lights, perhaps for the first time. He was focused on his worn dress shoes, and on the small, black box in the pocket of his jeans. That box was the most distracting creature Carlos had ever encountered, rivaled only by the handsome, honey-voiced man sitting beside him. The two together sent Carlos’s brain running in circles, not exactly in a bad way, but in an overwhelmed, not at all scientific way. Or perhaps in a very scientific way. Carlos has tried to study love before, but he’s never fully completed an experiment due to a specific beautiful and charismatic test subject. 

Carlos cleared his throat, shifting from his position. Previously resting his head downward on Cecil’s shoulder, the scientist turned his eyes to the stars as well.

“Cecil, I’ve been thinking. As a scientist, thinking is what I always must do, but it’s also what I’m doing as a human moving through time, as humans also must do.”

Cecil cocked his head towards him, offering Carlos an inquisitive hum of encouragement and acknowledgment of the reality of the unstoppable progression of time.

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking… about… life. And, so much has happened recently.” Carlos shifted again, nervously, and Cecil placed a comforting hand on his thigh. He ran through his notes in his mind, the carefully crafted speech he had written. But all he could think of was the soft purple of Cecil’s eyes and how he loved those eyes more than anything else in the universe. “I know, I know, Night Vale being destroyed and rebuilt happens more often than one would think, and it shouldn’t bother me by now. But it does.”

“I understand. It definitely can be… frustrating is one word,” Cecil replied, grimacing as he recalled the new and likely irreparable crack running through his favorite Khoshekh carving. “What about it, though?”

“Well, it’s just… every time I witness loss, every time I see something gone that used to not be gone I think of the things that still  _ aren’t _ gone, and what it would be like to have them be gone… Does that make sense, I don’t ‒ ” A nervous hand runs over closed eyes and through perfect hair. “ ‒ There’s a lot of things I don’t want to lose. And, God, Ceec, you’re all of them.” Carlos breathed in the shaky way he did when he made a discovery, or when he made one too many discoveries and can’t decide what to work over and over again on his chalkboard first. 

Cecil smiles softly, “You won’t lose me. And I won’t lose you, either. Not even the vague yet menacing government agency can keep us apart.” A joke, perhaps, but often a joke contains layers of truth and certainty that, if said in a non-joking way, would be far too dramatic and serious to maintain the emotional impact of the mood and flow of a conversation. This was one of those cases.

Carlos met his eyes, matching his smile. “I like to think that. I really do, Cecil. And I’m not a pessimist, but between all the dramatic things that have happened recently, I feel like… perhaps ‒ ”. Another shaky breath. “ ‒ There’s something more we can do, to make that even surer than chance may- may be showing, or displaying, or, you know, whatever chances are in a town like this. Not that Night Vale is a bad town-”

“It’s a terrible town.”

“It’s a terrible town and a  _ wonderful _ town. And a scientifically fascinating town!  _ And, _ it’s home. It’s  _ our _ home. And even if the chances of our survival get lower every moment we live here, I would roll those dice a hundred– a thousand– a million times if it means I get to wake up next to you for one more morning.” Cecil’s expression turns bashful.  _ He’s adorable _ .

“Cecil, I, um. Geez, uh.” Carlos’s hands searched anxiously up and down his shirt, looking for an invisible crease to smooth or a non-existent tie to adjust. In any other situation, Cecil would have held those hands in his own, massaging the joints and soothing their owner, but for once, the radio host is quiet, face warm and head caught in the mutterings of the man beside him.

One more breath. “Cecil. I want to be with you... for the rest of my life. No matter how short, how long. Until the day I die, if it’s at the claws of a five-headed dragon or an experiment gone wrong or fatal arrhythmia of my own aging heart. No matter if that day comes tomorrow or fifty years from now… I want to be by your side every second of that time. I love you to the stars and back. To the light’s above Arby’s and back!” He gestured wildly to the skies, not taking his eyes off Cecil. “I love you more than I could ever love science, more than I could ever love… anything. I love you so much, Cecil. And so…”

Carlos closed his eyes, look up at the stars, and back to Cecil, who remained in quiet shock, and anticipation. Carlos reached a shaking hand into his pocket, removing the ever so distracting black box. Never had it been heavier than now, and never had Carlos felt stronger. He eased open the top, revealing the ring. Carlos has spent weeks searching for one that befits Cecil, and he had found it. It was simple, and elegant, with a small pearl held in place by silver ringlets. Maybe it a little ugly, but in the way only Cecil and his lovably eclectic style could pull off. He offered it, hand shaking but movement confident: an action worth a thousand words.

“Cecil Gershwin Palmer. Will you marry me?” 

Cecil gaped at the ring, eyes wide, for the better part of a moment before enveloping Carlos is an enthusiastic embrace, wrapping his arms around the neck of the perfectly-imperfect, beautiful, intelligent, amazing man who loved him.

“Carlos… that’d... God… Carlos!” Cecil exclaimed, voice raising an octave or two higher than his usual dulcet tones allowed, laughing through the happiest tears he’d ever cried. He pulled himself off Carlos’s shoulders to look at him, face painted with a gigantic smile. “That’d be so… so  _ neat _ ! Yes! Yeah? Absolutely. I love you. Yes.”

“Yeah?! Oh, Cecil!” Carlos pulled Cecil back into the embrace, pressing his face into Cecil’s neck, which was bobbing up and down with giddy laughter. 

Cecil pulled back to kiss Carlos again and again and again, the pair giggling and falling backward onto the windshield of their car, which only increased their glee. They separated for a moment, respective glasses askew, so Carlos could slip the ring on Cecil’s thin fingers. The jewel catching the moonlight in a way that made its pearlescent surface gleam, round and full of moving stars identical to its wearer's glasses. It would, of course, be illegal to acknowledge the poetic beauty of the moon, but at this singular moment, with his hands and lips pressed to those of the man he loved and would continue to love for the rest of his life, Carlos couldn’t care less.

**Author's Note:**

> HERE is cecil's ring, for anyone curious: https://www.etsy.com/listing/54872283/pearl-and-sterling-silver-ring-june?ref=related-2 :) 
> 
> i originally had an art piece to go with this... perhaps one day i will update this to include it (should i ever finish it haha...)


End file.
